A Pure Double Cross (16 page)

I shrugged. “You saved my life.”

Jimmy gnawed this comment to the bone. Did he know I knew about the staged rescue? I kept my face straight and my yap shut.

“You'll get your gun before we go,” he said after a time. “And we split three ways.”

“Who's the third party?”

“The seven gunsels I'm bringing wit' me.”

“That's quite a generous offer to the little shavers. But I guess we both have an interest in keeping them happy.”

Jimmy bristled. “They'll do as they're told.”

“If you say so Jimmy.”

“I say so.”

I let my breath out nice and slow. I almost felt sorry for the poor dumb Italian Turkish octoroon. He was my puppy now.

“Done.”

Jimmy nodded and stumbled up the stairs to bed. Kingdog roused himself and trotted after him. I nibbled brandy and felt quite pleased with myself. Using false gratitude for Jimmy's fake rescue was especially brilliant, if I do say so.

I waited half an hour for deep sleep to settle in upstairs. Then I got up and slipped out the front door. The glacial air slapped me full across the face. I walked down the gravel drive and turned to look. I thought I'd glimmed it when I first arrived but I wanted to make sure.

Yep. A single line drooped down from a telephone pole to the third floor of the brown brick monastery. The Schooler's office. A telephone kept under lock and key. Could I chance it now? Sneak up the stairs and jimmy the lock?

Nah. The humans might sleep through it but Kingdog would be on me in a lick. I would have to bide my time, wait for the right moment. I had an important phone call to make.

I slept late the next morning, best I could tell. I had searched the room for my wristwatch, couldn't find it. What good's a man without a wristwatch?

I kicked off the covers and stretched out my spine, half hoping Nurse Lizabeth would barge in with her tray of ointments. I felt fit as a fiddle but I wasn't above mewling and moaning to garner some female solicitude. The door stayed shut. I heard muffled voices from downstairs.

What a group. Lizabeth was trolling for a new Sugar Daddy, Jimmy had agreed to sell out The Schooler and Mr. Big was in no position to squawk, having initiated the back-stabbing festivities his own damn self. Trust? Loyalty? That and a nickel will get you a cup of joe and two refills at Lulu's Place. Three if you ask nice.

I got up and quick footed across the cold floor to the bathroom, took a shower, shaved and brushed my teeth. My face had healed up some. The cut from Schram was scabbed over and my assorted purple bruises had faded to an ugly yellow-orange. My hair had grown shaggy. I was one tough-looking s.o.b.

I grabbed my socks and boxers off the radiator and slipped them on, enjoying the steamy warmth. Soon, Schroeder, very soon you'll roll out of bed and don a bathing suit and be dressed for the day. Wear one of those Hawaiian shirts to dinner maybe. Or not.

I pulled on pants and shoes and selected a flannel lumberjack shirt from the clothes closet. A Schooler hand-me-down, the sleeves stopped halfway down my forearms. I rolled them up to my elbows and clomped down the stairs, eager to
see America's most unlikely homemaker and chow down on a heaping plate of steak, eggs and country fried potatoes smothered in catsup. A wafting aroma quickened my step.

The breakfast room was empty. I poked my nose into the kitchen, I looked in the parlor. Nobody home.

I crossed the entryway and entered the dining room. Jimmy and The Schooler were bent to their plates. The Schooler at the head of the table, Jimmy at the foot. They were flanked by Ricky and Pencil Mustache and five other itchy young men.

“Any chow left?” I said

“Sorry Hal,” said The Schooler. “The early bird gets the grub.” The young men thought this just about the funniest joke ever.

“Guess I'll go raid the fridge,” I said and ankled off. I found an ice pick in a drawer. I ran up the stairs and stopped on the second floor landing, listened for trailing footsteps, then took the third floor stairs two at a time. One of the steps groaned when I put my weight on it. I took the remaining steps gingerly.

The third floor smelled moldy, unused. I followed dusty footprints to a stout door secured with a deadbolt and padlock.

I gave it a go with my ice pick but I'm a deuce with padlocks. There was no way into this room save for a crowbar or a battering ram. Or a key. I took one more stab at the padlock.

It was then I noticed that someone had made a mistake. They'd put an interior deadbolt plate - with easily accessible screw heads - where they should have put an exterior deadbolt plate - with the screw heads covered or removed. All I needed to make my phone call was a screwdriver.

I descended the stairs, marched to the dining room and leaned in. One chair was empty.

“I got time to strop my gums?” I asked.

“Joe's in the can,” said one of the punks. “You got all the time in the world.”

Laughs around the table. I turned tail and returned to the kitchen. I rifled every drawer and searched every cabinet. Some kitchen, all it had was cooking implements. I grabbed a butter knife, scraped the blunt tip around the inside of a greasy skillet and raced up the stairs. I paused half a breath on the second floor landing, listened, climbed some more, avoided the groaning step and made for the stout wooden door.

I swabbed Crisco below the screw heads and worked it in like a mason with a trowel. I wiped the grease off the knife and plied the tip of the blade. It spun out. I wiped the blade tip on my flannel shirt and tried again. The screw head didn't budge.

I had endured privation, indignity, assault and betrayal in my quest for freedom. No %#;?&!% flathead screw was going to stop me now. I torqued the blade till my shoulder burned.

The flathead screw budged. The next three gave up without a fight.

I pocketed the screws, uncoupled the deadbolt plate from the door and entered The Schooler's private office. It held a roll top desk, a fold-up cot and three file cabinets. The telephone was sitting on a small table next to the desk. I removed the slip of paper from my wallet and bent to dial numbers that weren't there. No dial plate. I would have to tippy tap the cradle and hope dear old Edna the operator hadn't wandered off to feed her cat.

I did. She hadn't.

“Number please,” said the clipped female voice. I gave it to her. “One mo-ment.”

I kept the receiver pressed to my good ear and hoped to hell that Joe was taking his sweet time in the necessary room this morning. I heard raucous laughter from downstairs. A woman came on the line. She sounded just like Mrs. Brennan.

“Is Ambrose there?”

“And who wants to know?”

“Harold Schroeder, ma'am. It's important.”

She set down the receiver with a
thunk.

-----

I was two screws away from having the deadbolt plate back in place when I heard the warped step groan. Whoever was coming to investigate was only half a staircase away. It had to be poor dumb cunning Jimmy stumping up those stairs, wondering where the G-man had got to. I pocketed the screws and tried the door across the hall. Locked. There was another door at the end of the hall but no time to get there. Jimmy was steps away.

I strode down the corridor to greet him, my mind racing. ‘Hey Jimmy, I was just'…what? He would notice that unscrewed deadbolt plate and bust me flat. He'd know what I was after in that locked room and check with Edna the operator to find out who. I listened to his final steps on the stairs.

I was dead meat.

I squared my shoulders and approached the dark-haired figure who turned to face me. A dark-haired figure wearing a scoop-necked sweater and a flared skirt.

“Get down there, they're looking for you,” hissed Lizabeth. She started back down, calling, “He's not up here!”

Whew.

I replaced the screws in the deadbolt plate and crept down the stairs to the second floor landing. I heard voices in the breakfast room. I couldn't descend that last flight, they would have searched the second floor. I ducked down the hall and into my room.

I grabbed my coat from the closet, crossed to the window, opened it and looked down. A snow-covered hedge twelve feet below. That would hurt. But three feet of snow had drifted against the hedge. It would have to do.

I scooted out onto the sill and closed the window behind me. I crouched down, set my feet on the narrow sill and broad jumped over the hedge and onto the snow bank.

I rotated my ankles, felt for brambles in my keester. A miracle had occurred. I was unscathed.

I shuffled through the drifting snow, keeping an eye out for hungry wolves. I turned the corner to the back of the building. The coast was clear. Now all I had to do was think of some plausible explanation for wandering around in a foot of snow in my street shoes. I slogged to the back door, opened it and entered the breakfast room.

“Where the hell you been?” snapped Jimmy from the parlor. He and two of the young punks were piling into coats and hats. Jimmy had his sawed-off in hand.

“Outside,” I said, stamping snow off my shoes.

“Doin' what?” demanded Jimmy, stepping my way.

I summoned my best dopey grin and shrugged. “Communing with nature.”

The punks chortled and elbowed each other's ribs. Jimmy's cheeks reddened but what could he say? Whatever I'd been up to I had gotten away with.

We were huddled in the library after dinner, Jimmy and me. The potbellied stove was unlit. We could see our breath as we talked.

“You bring the boys up to speed on the new plan?” I said because I knew I should.

“I will when the time comes.”

“You got an escape route worked out?”

Jimmy nodded. He nodded and smoked and smoked and nodded. “Who'd you call on the telephone?”

I cleared my throat and tried to think. There was no point denying it, Jimmy had doped it out somehow, followed the one way tracks from above my room to the back door maybe. Shoddy tradecraft on my part. But he didn't know who I'd called. Jimmy wasn't a guy who asked a question unless he had to. I had one shot at this.

“I called Jeannie. You were right about me and her.”

Jimmy tilted his head to the right and examined me from an angle.

“I didn't spill anything,” I said, looking away, looking down. “Just told her I was coming into some money and I, you know, wanted her to run away with me. I wasn't sure I'd get another chance to call.”

I looked up to see how this was going over. Hard as a peeled egg Jimmy Streets held his cigarette two inches from his mouth, waiting on Jeannie's answer to my heartfelt plea. Everybody's a sucker for romance.

“She shot me down,” I said, shaking my head sorrowfully. “She's a devoted wife all of a sudden!”

Jimmy nodded and slapped me on the shoulder so hard my teeth hurt. “Broads.”

“Yeah, broads.”

I stood up and stretched. “You got that gun handy?”

“When the time comes.”

I grunted and ankled off. Jimmy wasn't going to make this easy. I went to the kitchen and collected what I needed.

I was jumpy as a hamster when I closed the door to my room. Something was eating me, gnawing at the foundations. I sat on the bed and kicked off my shoes. I got up and paced the room in my stocking feet. The brass band above my right temple started playing, soft but quick.

This better not be an attack of conscience, Schroeder. This better not be an attack of conscience brought on by religious statuary. Not now. You're not an altar boy anymore. You were given a rare gift at a tender age. You were dropped from an airplane into the real world and got to see its inner workings close up. Bloody death and spectacular destruction, celebrated as victory.

Money, Schroeder. Money equals power equals control equals freedom. Go and get your money and leave the rest for later.

This little pep talk calmed me not a whit. I left a trail of garments behind me on my way to a scalding hot shower.

My scattered clothes were missing when I emerged from the shower ten minutes later, my spirits lifted, my insides untangled, a towel wrapped around my waist. Check that. My clothes sat neatly folded on the foot of the bed.

I was glad for the towel. Lizabeth was perched on the side of the bed in her chiffon nightgown.

I was pleased to see her, don't get me wrong. What red-blooded American male wouldn't be pleased to see Lizabeth sitting on their bed in a filmy peignoir, a tray of ointments resting on her lap, Clara Barton meets Lana Turner. But the
house was crawling with heavily armed men who might disapprove.

I approached warily. My bed had been tucked and folded into a bounce-a-nickel-off-the covers bunk. Lizabeth dangled my wristwatch from her fingers.

“This yours?”

“Yes,” I said, moving closer. “Where'd you find it?”

“Underneath your bed.”

“Oh.”

I should've looked there maybe. I accepted the dangled watch and hooked it to my wrist. It was 10:26 p.m. Less than 24 to H-Hour. Lizabeth patted the bed. I jumped up and adjusted my towel. Lizabeth set to work on me, stem to stern.

“What happened here?” she said, applying Unguentene to my scabbed over ankles.

“Birdshot,” I said.

“Where from?”

“Jimmy's sawed-off.”

“He's a wrong number, that one,” said Lizabeth. “Scoot over.”

I did as I was told. Lizabeth unpeeled the tightly-wrapped bed covers. “Climb in,” she said. I did that too. “Give me your towel.”

I unwrapped myself under the blanket. Lizabeth folded the towel precisely, absent-mindedly. I shivered on the cold sheets in my nakedness. What was this about?

“Henry won't let me anywhere near him,” she said and sat down next to me atop the covers. “Tomorrow's the biggest day of his life and he won't let me near him.”